I will walk through the requirements we had, what we used to have, and what the new setup looks like.

Requirements

The requirements for us are fairly simple:

We want access to a core set of channels:

Comedy Central

CNN

Food Network

HGTV

Local Channels (e.g. CBS, NBC, ABC).

Be able to favorite shows and replay them after they have aired.

Have access to streaming channels/services:

Amazon Prime

Netflix

Crackle

Spotify

Pandora

Be able to play Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and other optical content. While we rarely do this, we want the option.

Have a reliable Internet connection and uninterrupted service.

Have all of this both in our living room and in our bedroom.

Reduce our costs.

Bonus: access some channels on mobile devices. Sometimes I would like to watch the daily show or the news while on the elliptical on my tablet.

Previous Setup

Our previous setup had most of these requirements in place.

For TV we were with DirecTV. We had all of the channels that we needed and we could record TV downstairs but also replay it upstairs in the bedroom.

We have a Roku that provides the streaming channels (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Crackle, Spotify, and Pandora).

We also have a cheap Blueray player which while rarely used, does come in handy from time time.

Everything goes into Pioneer Elite amp and I tried to consolidate the remotes with a Logitech Harmony but it broke immediately and I have heard from others the quality is awful. As such, we used a cheaper all in one remote which could do everything except the Roku as that is bluetooth.

The New Setup

At the core of our new setup is a Playstation 4. I have actually had this for a while but it has been sat up in my office and barely used.

The Playstation 4 provides the bulk of what we need:

Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Spotify. I haven’t found a Pandora app yet, but this is fine.

Blueray playback.

Obviously we have the additional benefit of now being able to play games downstairs. I am enjoying having a blast on Battlefield from time to time and I installed some simple games for Jack to play on.

For the TV we are using Playstation Vue. This is a streaming service that has the most comprehensive set of channels I have seen so far, and the bulk of what we wanted is in the lowest tier plan ($40/month). I had assessed some other services but key channels (e.g. Comedy Central) were missing.

Playstation Vue has some nice features:

It is a lot cheaper. Our $80+/month cable bill has now gone down to $40/month with Vue.

The overall experience (e.g. browsing the guide, selecting shows, viewing information) is far quicker, more modern, and smoother than the clunky old DirecTV box.

When browsing the guide you can not just watch live TV but also watch previous shows that were on too. For example, missed The Daily Shows this week? No worries, you can just go back and watch them.

Playstation Vue is also available on Android, IOS, Roku and other devices which means I can watch TV and play back shows wherever I am.

In terms of the remote control I bought the official Playstation 4 remote and it works pretty well. It is still a little clunky in some areas as the apps on the Playstation sometimes refer to the usual playstation buttons as opposed to the buttons on the remote. Overall though it works great and it also powers my other devices (e.g. TV and amp), although I couldn’t get volume pass-through working.

Networking wise, we have a router upstairs in the bedroom which is where the feed comes in. I then take a cable from it and send it over our power lines with a Ethernet Over Power adapter. Then, downstairs I have an additional router which is chained and I take ethernet from the router to the Playstation. This results in considerably more reliable performance than using wireless. This is a big improvement as the Roku doesn’t have an ethernet port.

In Conclusion

Overall, we love the new setup. The Playstation 4 is a great center-point for our entertainment system. It is awesome having a single remote, everything on one box and in one interface. I also love the higher-fidelity experience – the Roku is great but the interface looks a little dated and the apps are rather restricted.

Playstation Vue is absolutely awesome and I would highlight recommend it for people looking to ditch cable. You don’t even need a Playstation 4 – you can use it on a Roku, for example.

I also love that we are future proofed. I am planning on getting Playstation VR, which will now work downstairs, and Sony are bringing more and more content and apps to the Playstation Store. For example, there are lots of movies, TV shows, and other content which may not be available elsewhere.

I would love to hear your stories though about your cord cutting. Which services and products did you move to? What do you think about a games console running your entertainment setup? What am I doing wrong? Let me know in the comments!

JOIN AS A MEMBER

Joining as a member is FREE. Get updates directly to your inbox, access to member-exclusive content, early access to new projects and material, win prizes, free 1-on-1 workshops, and more.

65 Comments

I’ve been using Harmony remotes for a while (since the 880) and have been generally happy. My personal take on the current generation is that the best choice is simply to get the model that comes with the hub and a basic remote – currently called the ‘Harmony Companion’. The fancy actual remote units do seem to be more fragile and temperamental, and lots of faffing about with charging…and you just don’t actually need any of their shiny features. The ‘basic’ remote works perfectly well, is very robust because there’s nothing complex in it (just the buttons and a transmitter), and the battery lasts for years. If you need advanced features you can use the app, but in my experience I just never need to use it for anything but updating the firmware in the hub.

I personally wouldn’t recommend the approach where you just get the hub and use a phone or tablet as the remote. Firstly you’ll find you have to get a dedicated phone or tablet because you won’t want to keep context switching on a device you use for any other purpose. Then you’ll find that phones and tablets just don’t make very good remotes, because you don’t want to actually look at a remote while you’re using it, you want to look at the TV. And for that you need actual tactile buttons, not a touchscreen.

One thing I’m curious about with a streaming-only setup: have you checked how much data you use, and if that’s OK with your ISP? I’d imagine the numbers get up there pretty fast if you’re streaming all your TV…

In terms of the bandwidth, honestly, I haven’t even thought about it. We are a data-heavy house and we have a higher-end plan. I would be surprised if we faced any data caps/limits, but I will definitely check into it. 🙂

+1 to harmony remotes, there’s a lot of though and experience in their designs. I have one of the basic ones that just has a smallish monochrome LCD for button names. Have had it for like 10 years, needs new AA’s every year or two.

That sounds like one of the really really old ones, maybe from before Logitech took over. Those do have a good reputation for robustness, yeah. The early Logitech ones tend to have the buttons and/or screen and/or charging circuitry die after a few years (that’s what happened to all my 880s and 890s). I’ve heard of similar issues with the current ‘fancy’ remotes, which is why I like the bundle that comes with just the basic remote – there’s really not a lot that can go wrong with it, and replacing it is cheap if it ever does need replacing.

Jono, What are your thoughts on the video resolution with Vue which I believe is only 720 vs 1080 from DirectTV? Also, what about 2 channel sound vs Dolby Surround? I see you have the same receiver as mine which I have connected via pass through on my tv so my tv and audio receiver turn on at the same time this everything that we watch has sound through the receiver and surround speakers. I didn’t think about all this until I recently read an article about how Vue and Sling compress the video to 720 and sound to 2 channel to properly stream. Like many people I purchased a 1080 tv for the video quality which you lose with Vue and Sling.

Jono,who do you use as a provider? I pay 52$ for high speed plus my basic cable Xfinity box with the same look as your Vue, a nice remote and HD channels + HBO cuze GOT son 😉 and 5 dollar per HD movie rental,which I don’t mind paying sometimes but if we apply patience these movies show up for free eventually. PPV is priced at ridiculous 9.80- 15 dollars or more for sports music events but who uses that with PronHub or RedTube right bro? bro ? Since I knew about Linux I have wanted to setup some kind of mythTV but it never came together hardware wise. We cut the cable for a while using an xbox, netflix, hulu etc… I don’t remember why we went back, could have been having to pay for too many services at one time.

When I say I was cutting the cord, I meant to our cable TV company. Much as I dislike Comcast, if you can recommend decent non-cable companies to get equivalent quality Internet from, I will check them out. 🙂

I love the PS Vue. I use it on my PS4 and PS3. I have 100mbps internet 75mbps while wireless. And the picture is far superior to any cable or dish set that i have had. I used to only have 8mbps download speed and to my suprise Vue worked just fine. With a set price point and new channels being added for free reguarly, Vue coupled with netflix amd amazon prime is my future of TV watching, bye bye overpriced and ever increasing cable prices.

My wife and I have never hooked up cable or even an antenna since we moved into our apartment two years ago. We just use our PS4 and actually mostly our Chromecast.

I game quite a bit on the PS4, so if it’s already on and we want to watch something on YouTube or Netflix, I’ll usually just fire the app up. Otherwise, we pull things up on our phone/tablet and cast it. CEC with Chromecast and PS4 is pretty awesome; our TV turns on (if not already) and switches inputs when we cast something or hit the PS button.

Service-wise we subscribe to HBO Now and YouTube Red (via Google Play Family) and share a subscription to Netflix with several family members. We purchase all of our movies digitally on Google Play or get physical discs with digital codes for Google Play.

Since we don’t watch sports and hardly ever want to watch something as it’s broadcast, this works well. For a few shows we follow on HBO, they stream them as soon as they broadcast them, so it’s basically the same.

I do almost the same, just that instead of Google Play I buy movies and shows from iTunes…there is a reason which I can’t tell here 😉 And overall cost is much lower as with most shows I get season pass, plus unlike Vue, I get to own those shows/movies. Vue is nice for a typical tv viewer; I am neither into news (especially TV news that’s more like junk food, I read news) nor into sports so 90% of content there is not for me. Looks like you and me are in same boat.

As far as remote control options for the PS4 go, there is an option in the system settings to enable HDMI CEC, which will let you control many things via your television’s remote control. You can even use this to power on the PS4 from the TV.

I use a Harmony remote, and this was a pretty good option to control the PS4 via infrared.

Recently became a cord cutter. Am using 2 Roku players, one a stickfor 2 TVs and subscribe to PS Vue. Am quite content with this t up but using two remotes all the time is a bit of a pain. Also a heads up,for Roku users, at this point there is no guide available as there is on the PS and also on Amazon Fire tv. I called Vue and they said they are working on it with a Roku. I’m still paying Comcast a hefty amount for wifi and am renting a modem/ router. My next step is to buy them and am looking for suggestions regarding separate modem/router or a combo one.

I suggest an Arris/Motorola Surfboard 6141 cable modem. Currently $68 on Amazon. Easy to set up and should last you for years and years. I would go with a standalone router, look at reviews and pick one that will work for you. I find that routers for one reason or another start to get iffy after a couple years. The modem/router that Comcast rents to you is utter crap. Just make sure after you get your own modem and return the rented one that you call tech support and tell them about it. Otherwise they still charge you the modem rental fee and say “well how are we supposed to know you aren’t using it anymore?” Argued with them about it and customer service still didn’t remove the charge from the past three months I was paying for it. Gotta love Comshaft.

While the 6141 is OK the SBG6700AC is better. Why recommend a separate router if they continually have issues and you have to replace them every few years? Why not get a “all in one” box and call it a day? And contrary to your opinion on Comcasts devices, they actually supply a comparable Arris to the one I listed above.

I recently cut the cord and went with PS Vue as well (have 2 PS4s, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Stick). I use the Harmony Hub mentioned above to control my TV and the Amazon Fire TV box and it works very well. It took a little effort to get it set up so when I push the “TV” button, it opens up the Vue app, but it was well worth it. On the TV in the bedroom, I use the Amazon Fire Stick which is controlled by the TV’s remote via CEC. In the spare room, I use a PS4. I honestly like the Amazon Fire TV set-up a little more than the PS4’s. I also use the app on ipad, which works very well in the bathroom to watch TV while getting ready in the morning. Overall, I think it is a great service. I have TWC which has no data caps (yet) with 300mbps down/30mbps up service and it runs flawlessly with PS Vue about 99.7% of the time. I’ve seen a hiccup here or there.

I have twc 300mbps plan and i use the netgear 4xs which is a beast of a router. As for modem i use the nergear cm600 so with these two i well future proofed. They are a little pricey but well worth the money

I ditched DirecTV back in March and switched to the Playstation Vue system. I have been very happy with this cord cutter. You have the ability to record your favorite shows on their cloud and the DVR function works just fine. My bill went from $120 with DirecTV to just under $60 with PS Vue (I have their Elite package) with plenty of channels to choose from, including local stations. Definitely a less expensive alternative for television viewing!

We run a couple firetv with netflix/prime/kodi. Thanks to LXC containers on a beefy box, I spin up instances. One instance is running samba and nfs and attached to a large local zfs pool with all the content. Another instance runs mysql and provides the shared library for kodi across the house. Another instance runs plex which provides the content to all mobile devices in and out of the house. Lastly I can spin up instances to goof around with anything else I think up.

Funny that I just saw this. I recently ditch cable as well. I too had Directv. I would hate when it rained because it would lose signal. It was getting worse and worse. I went searching around. I almost went with Sling TV, until a friend of mines mentioned Playstation Vue. I compared both. Playstation Vue had better options. Seemed like everything with Sling TV that I wanted, was an extra package price. Not with Playstation Vue. Plus I was able to see my sports. However, I don’t have a PS 4. I have PS 3 and it works great. Maybe one day when I’m financially stable, I can upgrade lol. In the bedroom, I have a Roku Streaming stick. I must say, this was one of the best decisions I ever made. Just wish I could of have done this sooner. My Directv bill was 115. I now pay only 45. Hello, savings. I’ve been telling all my friends about it. Hopefully they will see the light someday.

Awesome setup. Our PlayStation 4 works like a charm for TV shows and we can play games. I am not a big gamer but my 5 year old loves playing chess, Minecraft and Disney infinity games. We have Amazon prime to supplement our PlayStation Vue. We have Comcast for internet and have selected the Vue elite plan. We have 4 girls the oldest is 12. We don’t watch much TV, but football(soccer) is our sport and is the main reason we had cable service. When NBCSN was available on Vue we disconnected DirecTV. The girls all have tablets and live on YouTube. We are very happy.

Loving the PS Vue app. Cut cable cord two months ago and haven’t looked back. Interface is seamless and I as well purchased the PS4 Blu-ray remote. Time Warner Internet has been top notch for us surprisingly. Can’t wait for more features. NFL End Zone and NFL Network coming for this season, hopefully HBO Now app will appear as s well as UFC Fight Pass.. seeing how both are already on Xbox 1 I can’t fathom what’s taking so long for Sony

If local channels aren’t super important to you, Sling TV has a far better offer. Their base package starts at $20. They have a second tier base package at $25 that would offer some local channels, Fox and NBC, in addition to some other channels.

So, I’ve seen 100s of posts and articles about you gr8 cord cutters..
1st of all, where duz Internet come from ?
Your cable provider most likely.
So let’s start by not calling it cutting the cord, that’s 100% not true. Just a popular phrase..and your just being a fraud by saying that.
Ok, now a question which no one ever answera or brings up
If your a mlb or NFL fan..how would one watch games live with your so called cord cutting ?

Just an fyi, “cord cutting” has always been in reference to the TV side of things.

As for MLB or NFL, regional sports channels like Comcast Sportsnet are now available (or coming very soon) to both Sling and Vue. They carry the local market baseball teams typically. ESPN was already available on both and of course local channels carry games on Sundays for the NFL. Plus both Sling and Vue will have NFL Network and Red Zone channels by the upcoming NFL season. Of course, MLB.TV is also an option for baseball, particularly if you don’t care about seeing your local market team live necessarily. I always buy it around Father’s Day when it goes on sale for $49.99 for the rest of the season.

I just got out of my DirecTV contract, which ran $110 per month – $14 of which was equipment leases that you can’t get out of, $15 per month for DVR and $4.93 regional sports fee. They nickel and dime to death! Pretty crazy in my view. I will go with Vue most likely once football season starts. Cost savings in the $60-$70 range per month without missing any of the sports I want to see. Right now I am using a $20 antenna and get quite a few channels (21 that were of interest to me in Sacramento market) and use a TiVo that I got a lifetime sub on a few years back for $99. So no monthly DVR fee that way. Also have Netflix and Amazon Prime to round out the core viewing options currently.

My Comcast internet is $50 per month (I have my own modem) for 100Mb down speed.

There have really been huge steps made in 2016 toward having viable options to get sports without going the traditional (gouging) route of cable and satellite providers. That should put market pressure on those providers as well, resulting in some better value packages that include many of the sports channels most folks would want. I’m happy to see that as a big sports fan myself.

Cord cutting is referring to the cable cord that you view TV on, not the internet access needed to view shows so, no, he is not being a fraud saying that.
You can subscribe to the NFL or MLB passes which allow you to watch games over the internet. They are about $100 each which is still less than paying for a full year of cable.

Hi Jono – I’ve been looking at cutting the cord with DISH Network for the past month. My research has lead me to Playstation Vue especially when they announced they had a deal with NFL Network (have yet to see the details or pricing though). To confirm, is it a requirement that one owns a Playstation 4 or Playstation 3 in order to purchase Playstation Vue. I was hoping that I could run Playstation Vue via apps and Chromecasts with my TVs. Is that true or do I need to purchase a Playstation 3 or 4 in order to have Playstation Vue?

Alex you need either a PlayStation or an Amazon Fire TV to register with PS Vue, then after that you don’t need it anymore. We don’t have a PS (I’m one of the few Xbox guys) but we picked up a FireTV Stick for $40 and that allowed us to sign up and now we use our Android and iOS apps to stream Vue to our TVs via Chromecast.

You can also use Apple TV, but in a slightly different way. We have found that all of the channels that we watch through vue have apps on Apple TV that list PS Vue as a provider to login with. We have a fire stick in our other room that we use the vue app with in there. Also, rumor is that Apple TV will be getting a Twitter app that will stream live nfl games for free.

We cut the cord almost a year ago and haven’t missed a thing and actually prefer our streaming setup.

I will be dropping DISH here in December and switching to PS Vue. The only thing I don’t like is that NBC, Fox, and ABC are “On Demand” and not live (at least that’s what their website says), not sure why CBS is live and not on demand…Guess I’ll have to do a antenna to do those channels live

My wife and I went cold turkey last September and cut the cable TV completely. We paid someone to install and point an antenna on our roof and use a 4-tuner Tablo dvr system to record any over-the-air shows we want to watch. The Tablo streams your over-the air-live signal and your recorded material directly to Roku, Prime TV and Apple TV and there are a few extra upfront fees for channel guide subscription and harddrive. The return on investment is about 10 months based on cutting your bill by $60 a month. My wife and I don’t miss cable much, except for when The American’s and American Horror Story are on, but you can always “borrow” a buddies cable credential to access a cable networks streaming app. We use a Harmony universal remote to drive our Roku 3 (bought refurbed from Groupon for half-the-new price), home entertainment system and television. It works for us and helps eliminate 4 remotes. One final thing, the broadcast picture, 50 miles away from Baltimore and Washington is spectacular — crystal clear with a rare drop pixel or frame here and there.

I cut the cord about 3 months ago (Verizon FiOS). I am saving $80/month getting the Elite package (I have family here with little kids so the extra channels are important at the moment). I already had Roku 3’s on all my TV’s so I did not have to buy anything when I switched. I watch a lot of football (soccer) and could not make the switch with out NBC Sports. Once I found that was available on PS Vue on Roku, I made the switch within a week.
Here are my (personal) pros and cons:
Pros:
Money savings, the ability to move my TV to a different room or wall without moving more than the power cable(s) (My Roku’s do fine with my wifi connection), no equipment rental, I can still use my Vue account to watch stations online when not at home (for those stations that require a cable subscription – Sling does not work that way), can use my Vue account to watch Roku apps for cable stations which sometimes have more past shows available.
Cons:
Can not use Vue app outside of the house (Sling allows this to off set the above), no guide on Roku (you can see what is on each station now in the Channel listing but to see future shows you need to look at the channel), I would like for the Vue app to open to the Channel listings by default as opposed to having to navigate to it, and finally for some reason I (in the Washington DC area) can not get the local CBS station live and would need to subscribe to the CBS “app” but I have not cared enough yet to look into it.

The cons are really minor for me so it was a no brainer for me to switch. I am really happy with the decision. I have also gotten more use out of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video because of the switch as well. I do not have to change the TV input to switch to those apps so the single Roku remote serves 90% of my needs.

Cut the cord in April and at first used Sling TV for a couple months, which had it’s daily issues, but then ran across PS Vue which is night and day more reliable than Sling and rarely buffers or goes down, or freezes………also got Netflix and Hulu, had Amazon Video for a few months until I decided the cost for it wasn’t worth it for what I had been watching (which was only a few shows not found elsewhere but oh well nothing I can’t get over), satisfied now with just PS Vue, Netflix, Hulu and probably stay with that and can’t wait for NFL Network on PS Vue which continues to just get better (and is better than what I had for cable tv all those years when I had it, not paying for 300 channels in which I might of watched 15, now I got those 15 plus some on Vue that my cable provider never offered……..this internet streaming is the best thing since the invention of the wheel as far as I’m concerned…………

So you pay, I’m guessing, $35 for PS Vue, $8 for Netflix and $8 for Hulu. So $51 total. For me, those all encompass what I get currently with DISH for $50 a month. Isn’t the point of cord cutting to save money? And now you have to buy equipment in order to take advantage of these streaming services. Just curious.

But 50 dollars for how long? 1 year or six months. Plus orginal programing and movies on netflix and hulu are better than most of whats on tv. And video quality on vue and netflux are much better. Plus no surcharges and taxes

Sounds like you just wanted to rant a bit before coming to your senses. $29.99, all in HD, no bad weather washouts, no wires, access fees or taxes? You could add Showtime and Epix and still be under $51. Even for the braindead… that’s a no brainer. Duh!

We already have two Amazon fire boxes in anticipation of our Fios triple play contract ending in November. My question is. Can I use the home subscription to stream on my tablet at work? Or do I have to purchase a second?

I think only certain shows are restricted from mobile use, most notably NFL football (but they do offer the NFL red zone just like other cable packages). I watch shows on my tablet all the time with no problems.

I have been looking to ditch directv for along time. My husband recently purchased a ps4 and I was setting it up and noticed the PSVue. I did a little research and noticed it has what I have been searching for for well over a year…a great combo of live TV (I can get NBC and CBS local & live) and the few cable channels we watched. Tried out the 1 week free trial and was hooked. Never used my Direct that week and didn’t miss it for a second. I got the lowest Vue package available in my area which is $30/month. We previously had a ps3 that I was going to get rid of but now have moved to the bedroom tv and for our 3rd tv…spent $40 got a refurbished amazon fire stick and now our third TV has Vue as well (this TV was never hooked up to the directv, just a cheap Blu-ray so it was always limited to Netflix and Blu-ray discs).
It is a great service so far, inexpensive, no extra fees like equipment fees, taxes, surcharges, etc. Have access to all Internet services (netflix, Amazon prime, etc) and TV all in one box. Can watch across multiple platforms (ps4, ps3, Amazon fire TV, android). What more could you ask for?

Hey Jono! Long time Ubuntu user here! (Since Feisty Fawn!) I’m a cord cutter myself. I have not paid Cox, Comcast, Charter, Verizon or AT&T a damn dime since 2012. I just take a more hacker take on my situation. I use a Raspberry Pi 3 with LibreELEC (comes with NOOBS), and a Hauppauge WinTV HVR950-Q (which works just perfect in Linux) and a TV antenna to get WISH 8, MyIndy 23, Fox 59, CBS4, and WTHR13 in Indianapolis and WIPB 49… Because somehow the PBS Create channel has better cooking shows than Food Network… But I can watch Food Network shows with the Kodi Food Network app… with a 500GiB notebook hard drive for the DVR functionality. Total cost? About less than $50. I have the knack to hunt the Goodwill and I can find stuff to make it work. Cheap. I found my RPi3 at a flea market for $10. Not counting my internet connection, which is $50/month… I’m using a rooted Android to where I have CyanogenMod to provide WiFi without my carrier knowing I’m blowing past my allotted hotspot data. And sometimes there’s better shows on YouTube than on cable.